Join us! TechPort UAS Incubator and Innovation Hub
|
|
Fr
om the Director's Desk:
At TechPort we’re all about connections and helping out. We are in the business of helping dreams become reality. In this newsletter, you’ll read about how we helped Florida Tech successfully host a class in our airport hangar. Additionally, I want to focus today on another connection and ways we need your help.
I recently ran into some young men I’d met while emceeing a College of Southern Maryland
(CSM) robotics competition a few years ago. While catching up, they mentioned they had nowhere to study now that schools were closed and classes were online. I invited them to use some TechPort space. They took me up on it. During one conversation, it was revealed that their dream was to build a Battle Bot. If you’re not familiar, these creatively designed and engineered remote control, heavy armor, robot-like creations fight each other in competitions. A television series called Battle Bots has aired since 2000. I learned more about their dream and suggested: “Let’s do it.”
|
|
TABAS Co
TechPort's Featured Client of the Month - June 2020
|
|
Vetrepreneur Joins TechPort
The decision to join TechPort was a no brainer for Tracy A. Barkhimer. After 26 years in the U.S. Navy and stints with two companies, Barkhimer branched out on her own, providing defense acquisition strategy consulting services to clients that want to do business with Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). Her company, Tracy Anne Barkhimer Strategies & Consulting, is a service-disabled, woman-owned company that goes by the nickname, TABAS Co. She was doing work with Unmanned Propulsion Development (UPD), when she learned they were moving their office to TechPort. She decided to get an office of her own. It’s a perfect location for her to continue her work. Currently, she’s also supporting a Silicon Valley company who builds cutting-edge data management and data security solutions and a Silicon Valley start-up who develops radar enhancements for commercial and defense sectors. “I’ll be available for all things NAVAIR for TechPort,” Barkhimer says...
|
|
PTSD Awareness Month
Local Organization Seeks to Assists Those with PTSD
In honor of PTSD Awareness Month, TechPort has reached out to the community to highlight the importance of understanding this topic. Warfighter ADVANCE is a local nonprofit organization that helps those affected with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Their goal is to provide relief and clarity to warfighters through offering and teaching a variety of skills for successful reintegration. “PTSD is what happens to a person when they experience psychologically traumatizing events,” says Mary Vieten, a U.S. Navy psychologist and the founder and executive director of Warfighter ADVANCE.
At Warfighter, they take a “whole person approach,” Vietan says. “We use what is available to the Warfighter to help them to do the best of their ability.”
With this approach, the organization can offer resources to each individual person depending on their specific needs and struggles. Warfighter ADVANCE provides numerous healthy assets for people that are faced with PTSD issues. They provide scientifically validated skills training, lifestyle changes, and safe technology.
“We introduce resources that are safe and effective in helping people to stay calm and feel better,” Vietan says. The one resource that Warfighter ADVANCE does not provide, promote, or advocate is taking psychiatric medication.
“At Warfighter ADVANCE, we believe that there are no benefits that outweigh the risk of the medications,” she says, explaining why the organization steers away from medicinal methods. The organization prefers to use non-medical modalities, as they provide greater benefits with lower side effects. While in the Navy, Vieten witnessed firsthand people experience this type of stress and how it effects them personally. She explained how she and her colleagues wanted to “do something besides the medical treatment model.” They operated completely outside of that model, to keep patients from being subjected to the usual side effects from standard treatment.
Warfighter ADVANCE is working to break the common stereotype that PTSD limits people’s abilities and does not allow them to go back to their normal lives. By taking a hands-on alternative approach, Warfighter can show people that this will not hinder their lives.
“Post-traumatic stress is not limiting or handicapping, in any way,”
Vieten says, noting this information is something everyone needs to understand.
“A lot of people think they have to quit their jobs, or they are going to be put on disability for the rest of their life when affected by post-traumatic stress. There is no reason why a person cannot return to their normal lives,” Vieten says. “At Warfighter, we have shown that post-traumatic stress is not a showstopper. Everyone who has been involved in our program, we have helped move to a better place, and that is our goal.”
If you or someone you know want to get involved with Warfighter ADVANCE, check out their website at
www.warfighteradvance.org
. No paperwork is required, and it is completely free to attend the program.
Written By: Alexandra Walker, TechPort Intern
|
|
Sign up for Signals,our monthly newsletter..
TechPort's mission is to serve as a launching pad for entrepreneurs while accelerating diversification of the innovation ecosystem of Southern Maryland. Operated under contract by the University of Maryland,TechPort targets startup and early stage companies that specialize in autonomous systems and commercialization of Navy technology.
For more information on how to become a client or invest in these businesses,
|
|
#Flashback
This photo was taken earlier this spring when volunteers gathered to create PPE facemasks in support of local First Responders, using a design crafted by a TechPort client.
(photo courtesy of TechPort)
|
|
Progress Culture Tuesdays Interactive Innovation
Paul F. Murphy and Dominic Fragman of the Spirit of Innovation & Freedom (SIF) perform as part of their weekly Progress Culture Innovation sessions in the TechPort Hangar. The Spirit of Innovation & Freedom has been recognized as making a new sound in music and raising awareness of the importance of music as a dimension of innovation. Murphy and Fragman share their music and host conversations about art, community, science, technology, freedom, and progress for all on their weekly podcast,
Progress
Culture
. Visit
www.ProgressCulture.org
to learn more
This group originally performed at 5 pm, Tuesday evenings at TechPort, and hope eventually to begin offering the opportunity for live participation. Tickets will be available through TechPort's
Events Calendar
.
|
|
Flight test engineers participating in class discussions and then posing in front of plane used for hands-on learning.
Photo courtesy of TechPort
|
|
Partnership Provides Learning Experiences
Right Here at TechPort
Through an unusual partnership between Florida Institute of Technology and TechPort, students are getting hands-on experience flying airplanes. Bob Schaller, director of Florida Institute of Technology Southern Maryland Center, approached, TechPort Director Tommy Luginbill, with the idea. The two agreed to host the class at the TechPort airplane hangar. With the FTE 5702 Airplane Stability and Control Flight Test Engineering course, students would “examine techniques to evaluate airplane stability and control flight testing,” according to the course description. Brian Kish, program chair of Flight Test Engineering, and David Callender, a pilot and Certified Flight Instructor, taught this class to a group of seven Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) flight test engineers during the week of June 8, 2020.
(Click here to read more.)
Written By: Alexandra Walker, TechPort Intern
|
|
|
Stay Tuned! Follow our Monthly Updates as Local Team Preps for 2021 Battle Bots Competition
|
We met at the College of Southern Maryland (CSM), where we competed with the school’s robotics team and gained experience in robotics and teamwork. However, since we are based locally and do not have easy access to the
team and facilities at College Park, we have made the decision to create our own BattleBot team based here in Southern Maryland. We will be providing monthly updates and look for community engagement.
.(Read more..)
|
|
- Did you know? TechPort is engaging more closely with the Capital Area Tech Bridge at NavalX and NAWCAD. Stay tuned for updates on future opportunities to engage with these vital programs.
|
|
UPCOMING EVENTS
JULY 14
- Lockheed Martin Additive Manufacturing (LM-AM) Supplier ID Challenge is coming to TechPort to host an INFO SESSION. Event will be co-hosted with the MD Dept of Commerce. LMCO is seeking to create new opportunities for #startups & #small businesses. Visit
http://corprenect.umd.edu/corprenect-current-cohort.htm
l for details or the TechPort
events calendar
.
SAVE THE DATE!
|
|
TechPort is a public private sector initiative supported by:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|